The Federal Capital Territory Administration is still fighting poliomyelitis by giving immunization to the residents, even though it was last reported in Abuja in 2013. The FCT Acting Secretary of Health & Human Services, Mrs. Alice Achu, who made this known during the flag-off of the FCT 2016 African Vaccination Week at Saburi Community, a suburb of Abuja, confirmed that the last case of wild poliovirus was reported in February 2013. She attributed the success achieved in eliminating polio to the collaborative efforts of government and other partners. She said that, as part of activities for the FCT 2016 Vaccination Week, the FCTA would provide immunization services to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and nomadic settlements with poor routine immunization coverage. This was even as the FCT Permanent Secretary, Dr. Babatope Ajaikaiye described the theme for the 2016 campaign: “Close the immunity gap: Stay Polio Free,” as appropriate. He assured that the FCT Administration would provide quality immunization services to all the residents to improve the health and well being of mothers and children. Dr. Ajakaiye said that the administration would increase access to cost effective vaccinations against preventable diseases and make life saving critical health interventions, such as Vitamin A supplementation, nutritional screening and management. He said that the administration would double its efforts aimed at providing critical information on health education easily available to all residents. The Permanent Secretary explained that the focus of the African Vaccination in FCT is to work together with other stakeholders to strengthen national immunization programmes in the entire African region. He said that the FCT administration places top priority on the target of attaining Polio eradication and certification in Nigeria by 2017 and is therefore working to ensure availability of all relevant supplies to meet the demand that will be created. Dr. Ajakaiye warned that all the resources provided must be judiciously utilized to improve the health of all the women and children in the FCT. He called on all residents to avail themselves of the opportunity to receive immunization services, from the 24th to 30th April, 2016, in the health camps sited at selected areas including those in the Internally Displaced Camps, nomadic settlements and other high risk communities. He also called for the collaboration and support of the Traditional rulers, religious leaders and other well-meaning Nigerians in the FCT to eradicate polio in Nigeria as projected. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has recommended strict adherence the observance of social justice which he said is a solution to conflicts in Africa. He said that to achieve greater peace and political stability in their countries, African leaders must work harder to ensure social justice for all their citizens. Speaking at an audience at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, with the Foreign Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Mr. Agapito Mba Mokuy, President Buhari stressed that as leaders of sovereign nations, African Heads of Government must be allowed to discharge their responsibility for peace and security within their countries, without external interference. The President said that this was why Heads of State and Government of the African Union decided against sending peacekeeping troops to Burundi during the country’s recent political crisis. President Buhari said that he expected the Government of Burundi to work towards greater peace, national unity and social justice for all Burundians to justify the decision of the African Union. “Governments should be responsible for the security of their countries. Burundi must therefore ensure social justice for all of its people so as not to disappoint Africa in the eyes of the world,” the President told the minister who was in Abuja as a Special Envoy of President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. President Buhari assured him that Nigeria will continue to work with Equatorial Guinea and other nations to strengthen the African Union and its various organs for the good of the continent. He said that Nigeria will welcome more cooperation with Equatorial Guinea and other members of the Gulf of Guinea Commission to curb piracy and enhance security in the gulf. [myad]
Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission, Alhaji Adamu Fika has explained that Alhaji Mohammed Sani Omolori was appointed to succeed the outgoing Clerk to the National Assembly, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa because he (Omolori) still has longer years to offer before he retires.
In a memorandum, he submitted to the 440th meeting of the Commission held on April 20, Fika explained that the deputy Clerk, Mr. Benedict Efeturi who is supposed to succeed Maikasuwa would proceed on retirement leave on August 2.
He said that in conformity with the convention and practices of the service, no officer who has less than six months to retire would act in higher office.
“Mr. Benedict Efeturi, who presently acts as Deputy Clerk to National Assembly, will also proceed on his three months terminal leave on 2nd August, 2016 days before the end of the current Clerk’s terminal leave.
“It is neither expedient nor in conformity with convention and practices of the Service for an officer who has less than six months left to retire from service to act in a higher office.
“Mr. Mohammed Sani-Omolori, the present Clerk of the House of Representatives who therefore remains the next most senior officer in the services of the National Assembly will remain in service till 2021.”
Meanwhile, the Act establishing National Assembly Service Commission, as amended indicates that its action is not subjected to the direction of any authority or person in considering anybody for appointment.
Section 6 (8) of the Act says: “In exercising its power to make appointments or exercise disciplinary control over persons, the Commission shall not be subjected to the direction or control of any authority or person.” [myad]
Former governor of Jigawa state and Nigeria ex foreign affairs minister, Sule Lamido has said that he will contest the 2019 presidential election should the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) find him deserving of the ticket.
Lamido who spoke to news men in his village, Bamaina in Birnin-kudu local government area of the state, admitted, though, that he would have to first earn it, as nobody gets the PDP presidential ticket on a platter of gold.
“If my party finds me worthy of the party’s presidential ticket to serve Nigeria, I will thank God and oblige,” he said.
“Although there are issues in the party that we are all working to resolve, we hope to have success soon and come out united. As I’m talking to you now, we are working silently to resolve our differences and bring back to our fold those that left the party for APC.”
He blamed PDP’s underwhelming outing at the 2015 general election on its internal crisis.
“PDP has the capacity to rule the country again but the members must work hard to achieve that,” he said even as he denied any rift with his successor, Muhammad Badaru of APC.
“We have mutual respect for each other and I have no differences with him other than political ideologies.”
Earlier on Saturday, Lamido, seeking to explain the poor performance of PDP in the north at the 2015 general election, had claimed that many northerners did not have the freedom to vote their choices because of the branding of the PDP as a Christian party.
“In the build-up to the last general election, PDP was vilified, intimidated with religion, falsehoods and propaganda through Facebook postings. Rwandan genocide pictures were posted as Boko Haram victims. PDP was blackmailed into silence,” he said.
“When you queued to vote in the north, people viewed you as an infidel. You were all there and these things happened in a country where freedom should be the operating word. APC man can vote APC but if Lamido votes PDP, he is a Christian; he is a pastor.” [myad]
Six doctors in the services of the Ekiti State Government died yesterday, Sunday in a road accident. The doctors were travelling from Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, to Sokoto in Sokoto State for the Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Medical Association before they had an accident in Kaduna State. The doctors are Dr. Aladesanmi of the Federal Medical Centre, Ido-Ekiti; Dr. Ojo Taiwo of the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital; the Ekiti State Secretary of the NMA, Dr. Akinyele Lexy; Dr. Ogunseye of the Health Management Board; The President of the EKSUTH Association of Resident Doctors, Dr. Olajide; Dr. Adeniyi James of the FMC. Also dead in the accident was the driver of the 13 seater bus in which they were travelling, simply identified as Mr. Ajibola. The Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, on Monday morning condoled with the family of the deceased, the NMA and the state in general. Fayose described the death of the six medical doctors and one driver in the State as the lowest point in the history of the State and a monumental loss not only to the people of Ekiti State but to Nigerians. He declared three days of mourning for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The governor, who directed that all flags should be flown at half mast, described the death as an eclipse of professional and intellectual figures, who lost their lives in active service to mankind, adding: “Ekiti has lost some of the best trees in its forest of medicine. I am deeply sad. This is one loss too many.” In a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said: “Death of seven prominent indigenes of a State in one day and at the same period is a burden too heavy to bear and it is my prayer that God, who is the only giver and taker of live will give Ekiti people the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.” The governor urged families, friends and professional colleagues of the deceased, especially members of the NMA, to take solace in God who giveth and taketh when it pleases Him. Ge said: “It is my prayer that tragic incident like this will not be witnessed in Ekiti State again and that God in His infinite mercies will console the families of the deceased. “On behalf of my family, Government and people of Ekiti State, I express our heartfelt condolence for the loss of these promising sons of Ekiti and wish their families, friends and professional colleagues the continued support and guidance of the Almighty God.” [myad]
Algerian international also with Leicester City, Riyad Mahrez has been named the PFA Player of the Year for the 2015-16 season. The 25-year-old player has become the first ever African player to win the award after beating Leicester teammate Jamie Vardy and Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane to the main prize. Mahrez scored 17 goals and registered 11 assists in the Premier League this season, with the attacker’s form a key contributor to Leicester’s position at the top of the table with three games left. The latest of Mahrez’s goals came on Sunday afternoon when he struck in his team’s 4-0 win over Swansea City. Mahrez, who has been linked with Barcelona over the last few months, is believed to have cost Leicester in the region of £400,000 from Le Havre in 2014. [myad]
By the time you read this piece the government would have probably doubled the number of troops in the already degraded and now militarized lands of the oil-rich Niger Delta. The purpose of this to the generality of the people of the region also known as `South South’ is to protect oil installations. The black gold that drives the engine of Africa’s biggest economy.
The government pushed forward its objectives on increasing the number of troop in the region from far away in China during a state visit to the People’s Republic. This had prepared the cheerleaders of the administration for the propagation of the ‘good sides’ of the macabre dance that is about to recommence in the delta. According to the government, the move is to curb the activities of pipeline vandals and to stop oil thieves in the region. Just as previous administrations in the past, especially those of former kleptomaniac dictator General Sani Abacha and President Olusegun Obasanjo forcefully emasculated the region, denying it people of their rights and privileges on their ancestral lands and at other times killing them as in the case of the Odi massacre, this administration has come to chain them again in the name of curbing pipeline vandals that constitute a very tiny minority of the population.
In making its threats more dreadful and forceful, the president said he will treat vandals the same way the deadly Boko Haram terrorists is being treated in the North East. And this include the alleged extra judicial executions of both innocent and suspected sect members.
When the government’s rage begins, my mother, grandmother and other relatives might be cut in the crossfire. My mother, a petty trader, has to move from one area to another and my grandmother, a fish farmer, would not be stopped from checking her fish traps every now and then in ponds around the rivers that transverse areas that the military may want to establish new bases or occupy. In the absence of any significant government presence in their lives, they have to fend for themselves. This is the risk I live with daily and many innocent families have suffered the consequence as our thieving ruling elite continue to tighten their stranglehold on the crude oil freebies since 1956 when oil was first discovered in the swamps of Oloibiri.
Recently I traveled home and experienced first-hand the brutality of the militarized delta. I got my unfair share of the dehumanizing situation in the region. The daily humiliation of the people is becoming unbearable. When I traveled to help with preparation for my younger brother’s marriage, I must have passed over two dozen military checkpoints before arriving our ancestral homeland. There were troops stationed along the East – West road starting from the Sapele stretch of the Benin-Warri-Sapele expressway with sophisticated arms carrying out checks and at other times thorough checks that included stripping of passenger’s clothes. This is despite the fact that the army had not mobilized to the region. The use of mobile phones unconsciously a few meters to or around the checkpoints is a taboo. Such could earn the defaulters summary detention or a more dehumanizing punishments.
It will surprise you to know that there are many hardworking young delta natives who have not seen or have an idea of the color of crude and how it is drilled. Yet, they are in the same region. They have not even caught a glimpse of what a major pipeline system look like. They have also not in any form enjoyed the benefits derived from the crude like their counterparts in Abuja and other cities in Nigeria. Yet they have not complained. The gas pipelines that passes through their land does not supply them electricity. While petroleum products are sold at regulated prices in Abuja, Lagos and other cities in Nigeria. They, without grudges, drive into filling stations to refuel at whatever amount that is in the dispensing meter of the independent marketer where they have stopped to buy fuel, sold at over N200 a litre in most parts of the delta. They do not see anything unusual in subjecting them to the recurring denial of their rights to free movement in the name of securing the Niger delta for easy exploitation of their oil wealth by the ruling class and their cronies.
I perceive the move by the government to increase the number of military troops in the Niger delta as deceptive. A political move that is meant to sustain continued emasculation of the five percent voters from the region while they are milked dry to the last drops of oil from their backyards. This is because pipeline vandalism is not an occurrence recorded only in the delta region but in all areas that the pipelines transverse within the country. It is even on record that most pipeline vandals in the delta do not seems to temper with gas pipelines because they are economic criminals and would only go for what will enrich their pockets. We must realize that Lagos and Ogun States have had more incidences of pipeline vandalism than what is recorded in the entire delta put together. Law enforcement agents have also made more arrests in these areas than in the delta region yet they are not under quasi state of emergency like being experienced presently in the Niger Delta.
The region has remained one of the most impoverished judging from what has been obtained from it in building the other adjoining parts of this federation. It is however left to weather over the devastating effects of oil exploration and exploitations in the past 60 years. The indigenes are amongst the most travelled Nigerians because the country has not offered them social benefits that are different from what is obtained at the other federating units. They are migrants, legal in most cases and are resident in numerous western countries where they have distinguished themselves and now repatriate funds back to the country in billions of dollars annually despite being woefully disappointed by the rulers who governed them all these years. But while the region has not expressed dissatisfaction they are aware of the ill treatments meted against them by successive administrations. These same people who relies solely on it resources and had turned canaries few months ago in the days of dirty campaigns, thinking the capture of power in the centre will make an easy fest on the region’s oil have far been disappointed and well humiliated. Now there is little or nothing to share at Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja. The forum have become uninteresting with the ever bustling National Economic Council forum turned a meeting for borrowing, mourning and bemoaning of fates. You could see disappointments written all over the faces of most governors depicting, the real societal clueless who felt until now that everything came with government positions and power.
Now that there is little left to share, though a gradual appreciation in oil prices the administration’s strategy is to ensure that Niger Delta is so militarized to forestall any breaches to the continuous flow of the free funds while the people in the region are left to die. It is the best way to describe the present scenerio whereby only pipelines around the Niger Delta becomes an attraction for monitoring with soldiers when the same pipelines transverse several other states to the location of power generating companies.
Such calculated oppression calls for closer watch from the international human rights bodies. The government must stop any attempt at sustaining the suffocative treatment of Niger Deltans especially with the present disdain. It must not be carried away by the fact that the region is made of up small uncooperative minority units. The administration is not to take that for a license for the continued disrespect, ill and dishonorable treatment of these people while it uses resources from the area in purchasing the arms it uses to oppress them. The government should therefore stick to its promise of diversifying the economy and let my people be free. The government can’t be diversifying an economy on one hand while clinging to oil on the other hand. That’s pretenses.
The United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Samantha Power has said that it is unimaginable what the over 200 female students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno state are going through now in the hands of the Boko Haram insurgents who abducted them since April 14 2014.
Ambassador Power, who spoke at a Town Hall Meeting at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, asked “how can you tell a young girl who was abducted and forced to choose between marrying a terrorist or being killed. How can you tell her not to be haunted by fear? What she’s going through is unimaginable.”
She said that the job of building inclusive communities, which has to begin as Boko Haram is being defeated, cannot be left to government alone.
“You can build it right here in your community. You are. And this is the challenge I will like to close my remarks with today – you can help prepare, and where necessary, rebuild the fabric of your communities, which have been ripped apart by violence and fear. This fear is understandable.”
Ambassador Power wondered how the young ones who watched helplessly as their villages were being burnt down, and were forced to choose between fighting Boko Haram and being killed, can be told not to be consumed hatred.
“His challenges are so daunting the pains and the scars and the wounds and the trauma so deep. We have seen how such fears can divide communities, who have longed live side by side and worked together like these religious leaders. Consider the town of Michika, in the north of this state, which used to have just a single market day.
“Since the town was liberated from Boko Haram last year, Michika’s residents are so divided that residents now hold two market days – one for Christians on Saturdays and one for Muslims on Sundays. An arrangement that is worse for merchants and worse for consumers.
“Consider the abducted boys and girls who have been freed or have managed to escape, only to find that their own communities can treat them sometimes with suspicion and distrust, or turn the away, calling them anoba, a contagion.
“Those are the kinds of fears you must work together to dispel, by rebuilding inclusive communities from the ground up. That is what the Adamawa Peace Initiative is doing, by bringing together Christian and Muslim leaders in Yola, several of whom are here with us. They provide a living model of inter-faith cooperation. And they defuse tensions when they flare up. It is what your university doing, by welcoming 24 young women from Chibok, who escaped Boko Haram, mentoring them in their studies and showing that they should be embraced. They have so much to offer Nigeria. And having met with some of them, I can’t even imagine what these girls are going to do and the difference they are going to make. They are going be doctors and engineers and accountants. They are going to help change this country.”
The full text of Ambassador Power’s speech is reproduced here:
I want to express my gratitude to the dynamo, who is the American University President, Margee Ensign, not only for hosting today’s town hall, but also, of course, above all, for the work that this university is doing in this community of Yola and beyond, under her leadership. A round of applause for her please.
I think what you all have done here is really a model for how universities, not only in Nigeria but all around the world, can wade into some of the most complex and seemingly intractable challenges facing their communities. It’s also a model for how you shape a rising generation of leaders.
I want to stress, the United States stands with Nigeria, and we will support you, as you defeat Boko Haram. We will also support you as you promote, not only the security, but the dignity and prosperity of people in the region.
And I just like to discuss three more steps that I think we need to take together, three more ingredients that are key to ending the scourge of Boko Haram.
First, we need a humanitarian response that is commensurate with the scale of the current crisis. You all know the numbers, you live the numbers. The violence has killed thousands and displaced more than 2.5 million people. In Nigeria, it is estimated that more than 90 percent of those displaced by Boko Haram are living with relatives and friends. Think about that. It is hard to imagine a greater testament to the heart of the Nigerian people, to the generosity of the Nigerian people, the fact that so many have opened their homes to those who have been uprooted. This is an unusual phenomenon, of having 90 percent of the displaced sheltered by other families.
At the same time, this statistics also shows the ripple effect of the violence and instability wrought by Boko Haram, ripples that are felt way beyond the communities that are directly affected. And you have seen it here in Yola, where, as a result of mass displacement caused by this conflict, the population has doubled. And like so many Nigerians, your university community has stepped up in heroic ways. Working together with local religious leaders, the University has provided food and other basic supplies for thousands of people. At one point, a University security guard, KamainThumba, was hosting some 50 members of his extended family. Now if you all see Kamain around, you give him a high five for me, because that is extraordinary.
Students, including some in the audience today, began volunteering in the Malkohi camp, which I visited earlier today. One group of volunteers help set up a virtual network, to help displaced people find their loved ones who had fled to other parts of the country. Some of these volunteers were in Malkohi on September 11, 2015 when a Boko Haram bombing there killed seven people and wounded many more, including several students of this very university. It speaks to the courage and the compassion of AUN students that so many of you continue to volunteer in this camp, to this very day.
The second way we have to supplement the military response to Boko Haram is by tackling the long standing poverty and inequality that existed long before this terrorist group emerged. The North-East has the highest infant mortality rate in the country, with one death every ten births. The male literacy rate is 18 percent, the female literacy rate is 15 percent. It is for that reason that the U.S. Government is supporting projects like Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA), here in Adamawa state. As some of you know, the TELA program aims to teach kids who are displaced or orphaned, homeless, or otherwise unable to go to school. It aims to teach them basic literacy and numeracy, primarily using radio broadcasts. The project has trained 750 facilitators from around the state, each of whom was given a radio, a set of workbooks and other school supplies. Twice a week, the facilitators convene kids in their communities to hear a short radio broadcast, following along in their workbooks, as they listen. Your university has been central to this. TELA’s 750 facilitators were trained right here, on your campus, and its curriculum was developed by a team led by today’s moderator, Dr. Jacob. When, recently, a facilitator couldn’t make it to host a class, the kids in his neighborhood went house to house, until they found someone who would lend them a radio. And when the kids couldn’t get a clear signal with that radio, they made an antenna out of a coat hanger. That is how hungry children are in your community to learn. And it is an inspiration for all of us who get to engage with you and witness this. It’s amazing.
This brings me to third ingredients, in confronting the threat posed by Boko Haram, and that is building the inclusive, accountable and rights-respecting institutions that would improve the foundation for good governance and economic growth. This is the long game in countering violent extremism, one that will require tackling what President Buhari has called “The biggest monster of all”. You know what that is – corruption. It would also require embracing the vibrant civil society groups in the region, and recognizing that their criticisms, while difficult to hear, are stronger. And it will require knocking down the enduring barriers to opportunities faced by women and girls. Because, as we know, society where women enjoy equal rights and equal opportunities are, on average, more prosperous, healthier, more democratic and more peaceful.
The job of building inclusive communities cannot be left to government alone. You can build it right here in your community. You are. And this is the challenge I will like to close my remarks with today – you can help prepare, and where necessary, rebuild the fabric of your communities, which have been ripped apart by violence and fear. This fear is understandable. How can you tell a young girl who was abducted and forced to choose between marrying a terrorist or being killed. How can you tell her not to be haunted by fear? What she’s going through is unimaginable. How can you tell a young boy, who watched helplessly as his village was burnt down, and was forced to choose between fighting Boko Haram and being killed, how can you tell him not to be consumed hatred? His challenges are so daunting the pains and the scars and the wounds and the trauma so deep. We have seen how such fears can divide communities, who have longed live side by side and worked together like these religious leaders. Consider the town of Michika, in the north of this state, which used to have just a single market day. Since the town was liberated from Boko Haram last year, Michika’s residents are so divided that residents now hold two market days – one for Christians on Saturdays and one for Muslims on Sundays. An arrangement that is worse for merchants and worse for consumers.
Consider the abducted boys and girls who have been freed or have managed to escape, only to find that their own communities can treat them sometimes with suspicion and distrust, or turnthe away, calling them anoba, a contagion.
Those are the kinds of fears you must work together to dispel, by rebuilding inclusive communities from the ground up. That is what the Adamawa Peace Initiative is doing, by bringing together Christian and Muslim leaders in Yola, several of whom are here with us. They provide a living model of inter-faith cooperation. And they defuse tensions when they flare up. It is what your university doing, by welcoming 24 young women from Chibok, who escaped Boko Haram, mentoring them in their studies and showing that they should be embraced. They have so much to offer Nigeria. And having met with some of them, I can’t even imagine what these girls are going to do and the difference they are going to make. They are going be doctors and engineers and accountants. They are going to help change this country.
Every student volunteer you have, who goes out and helps rebuild the communal bonds that Boko Haram has sought to sever, whether it’s by taking in displaced families or coming up with a lesson plan for kids, these volunteers, they are changing the world. They are a critical piece of the fight against Boko Haram. They are doing everything that is Boko Haram’s opposite. And terrorism will be defeated by active kindness, active reconciliation, active trust.
Your communities and your nations are looking to you to take up that work in an unimaginably challenging time. We will be with you always. We will be with you to the very end, and the sky is the limit to the partnership between the American and the Nigerian people. And we will do everything in our power as a government, to support your efforts to put this horrible chapter behind you. [myad]
Angry youths went wild and burnt down the Mountain Of Prayers ministry in Jesse town, a small clan in Sapele community, Delta state owned by a pastor whose name was given simply as Emma.
The angry youths accused Pastor Emma of sleeping around with married women within and outside his church.
The Pastor was said to have incurred the wrath of the youths when he was allegedly caught sleeping with Chief Austine Omonode’s wife. The husband of the woman, Chief Austine Omonode is the President General of Idjerhe Clan Development Union (ICDU).
The youths were said to have invaded the church at about 12 noon, destroyed property worth millions of naira even as many church members were injured in the confusion.
While the details of the attack by the youth on the church were still scanty, information said that some officers of the Nigeria Army have waded into the crisis and have arrested the President General of the ICDU. [myad]
Former Nigeria Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, has admitted that he is sick but not to the level of incapacitation. Babangida who spoke with selected news men today, Sunday, in his Hilltop home in Minna, the Niger State capital said: “it is true I have minimized my appearance at public functions because of my ill health, but not to the level of incapacitation as being widely circulated in some media.” The former Nigeria strong man went on to sermonize: “for me, it doesn’t shock me neither bother me because I know I must go and meet God my Creator. There is nothing really to worry about, my religion has told me. “Well, as a Muslim, I strongly believe everybody will die. Everybody will die and everybody has to die. It could be now or in 100 years time or two days to come. But it doesn’t matter. Everybody must die. “You can see me attending to people, after which we all go in for our lunch and have our prayers before I retire for my siesta. I am not incapacitated. “Nobody is above sickness or death because nobody is above what God has destined. “Everybody will fall sick or will die or either of their relations must die.” The former Military President however recalled the wound he sustained in his right leg as a result of the piercing of a bullet during the Civil War which he said, has been with him for quite sometime. He said that its frequent relapsing is an expected phenomenon. “When I was the President of the country, I had to travel to Germany where the sickness was diagnosed as Radiculopathy, which has troubled me since and as such relapses.” Early last week, reports had it that Babangida was seriously ill and bedridden. Some reports even had it he had passed on even as the rumour took over about his death in some parts of his Niger state. Speaking on Nigeria as a nation, Babangida said that its future is bright and that the dreams of Nigerians to actualize their independence is worthwhile. “I still believe very strongly in this country, which is further demonstrated by the people of this great nation because they are very industrious people, hardworking. That gives me the hope for Nigeria.” [myad]
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The Federal Capital Territory Administration is still fighting poliomyelitis by giving immunization to the residents, even though it was last reported in Abuja in 2013.
Re-Militarization Of Niger Delta, By Moses Okpogode
The government pushed forward its objectives on increasing the number of troop in the region from far away in China during a state visit to the People’s Republic. This had prepared the cheerleaders of the administration for the propagation of the ‘good sides’ of the macabre dance that is about to recommence in the delta. According to the government, the move is to curb the activities of pipeline vandals and to stop oil thieves in the region. Just as previous administrations in the past, especially those of former kleptomaniac dictator General Sani Abacha and President Olusegun Obasanjo forcefully emasculated the region, denying it people of their rights and privileges on their ancestral lands and at other times killing them as in the case of the Odi massacre, this administration has come to chain them again in the name of curbing pipeline vandals that constitute a very tiny minority of the population.
In making its threats more dreadful and forceful, the president said he will treat vandals the same way the deadly Boko Haram terrorists is being treated in the North East. And this include the alleged extra judicial executions of both innocent and suspected sect members.
When the government’s rage begins, my mother, grandmother and other relatives might be cut in the crossfire. My mother, a petty trader, has to move from one area to another and my grandmother, a fish farmer, would not be stopped from checking her fish traps every now and then in ponds around the rivers that transverse areas that the military may want to establish new bases or occupy. In the absence of any significant government presence in their lives, they have to fend for themselves. This is the risk I live with daily and many innocent families have suffered the consequence as our thieving ruling elite continue to tighten their stranglehold on the crude oil freebies since 1956 when oil was first discovered in the swamps of Oloibiri.
Recently I traveled home and experienced first-hand the brutality of the militarized delta. I got my unfair share of the dehumanizing situation in the region. The daily humiliation of the people is becoming unbearable. When I traveled to help with preparation for my younger brother’s marriage, I must have passed over two dozen military checkpoints before arriving our ancestral homeland. There were troops stationed along the East – West road starting from the Sapele stretch of the Benin-Warri-Sapele expressway with sophisticated arms carrying out checks and at other times thorough checks that included stripping of passenger’s clothes. This is despite the fact that the army had not mobilized to the region. The use of mobile phones unconsciously a few meters to or around the checkpoints is a taboo. Such could earn the defaulters summary detention or a more dehumanizing punishments.
It will surprise you to know that there are many hardworking young delta natives who have not seen or have an idea of the color of crude and how it is drilled. Yet, they are in the same region. They have not even caught a glimpse of what a major pipeline system look like. They have also not in any form enjoyed the benefits derived from the crude like their counterparts in Abuja and other cities in Nigeria. Yet they have not complained. The gas pipelines that passes through their land does not supply them electricity. While petroleum products are sold at regulated prices in Abuja, Lagos and other cities in Nigeria. They, without grudges, drive into filling stations to refuel at whatever amount that is in the dispensing meter of the independent marketer where they have stopped to buy fuel, sold at over N200 a litre in most parts of the delta. They do not see anything unusual in subjecting them to the recurring denial of their rights to free movement in the name of securing the Niger delta for easy exploitation of their oil wealth by the ruling class and their cronies.
I perceive the move by the government to increase the number of military troops in the Niger delta as deceptive. A political move that is meant to sustain continued emasculation of the five percent voters from the region while they are milked dry to the last drops of oil from their backyards. This is because pipeline vandalism is not an occurrence recorded only in the delta region but in all areas that the pipelines transverse within the country. It is even on record that most pipeline vandals in the delta do not seems to temper with gas pipelines because they are economic criminals and would only go for what will enrich their pockets. We must realize that Lagos and Ogun States have had more incidences of pipeline vandalism than what is recorded in the entire delta put together. Law enforcement agents have also made more arrests in these areas than in the delta region yet they are not under quasi state of emergency like being experienced presently in the Niger Delta.
The region has remained one of the most impoverished judging from what has been obtained from it in building the other adjoining parts of this federation. It is however left to weather over the devastating effects of oil exploration and exploitations in the past 60 years. The indigenes are amongst the most travelled Nigerians because the country has not offered them social benefits that are different from what is obtained at the other federating units. They are migrants, legal in most cases and are resident in numerous western countries where they have distinguished themselves and now repatriate funds back to the country in billions of dollars annually despite being woefully disappointed by the rulers who governed them all these years. But while the region has not expressed dissatisfaction they are aware of the ill treatments meted against them by successive administrations. These same people who relies solely on it resources and had turned canaries few months ago in the days of dirty campaigns, thinking the capture of power in the centre will make an easy fest on the region’s oil have far been disappointed and well humiliated. Now there is little or nothing to share at Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja. The forum have become uninteresting with the ever bustling National Economic Council forum turned a meeting for borrowing, mourning and bemoaning of fates. You could see disappointments written all over the faces of most governors depicting, the real societal clueless who felt until now that everything came with government positions and power.
Now that there is little left to share, though a gradual appreciation in oil prices the administration’s strategy is to ensure that Niger Delta is so militarized to forestall any breaches to the continuous flow of the free funds while the people in the region are left to die. It is the best way to describe the present scenerio whereby only pipelines around the Niger Delta becomes an attraction for monitoring with soldiers when the same pipelines transverse several other states to the location of power generating companies.
Such calculated oppression calls for closer watch from the international human rights bodies. The government must stop any attempt at sustaining the suffocative treatment of Niger Deltans especially with the present disdain. It must not be carried away by the fact that the region is made of up small uncooperative minority units. The administration is not to take that for a license for the continued disrespect, ill and dishonorable treatment of these people while it uses resources from the area in purchasing the arms it uses to oppress them. The government should therefore stick to its promise of diversifying the economy and let my people be free. The government can’t be diversifying an economy on one hand while clinging to oil on the other hand. That’s pretenses.
Twitter @MOkpogode. [myad]